Geography: Yorkshire and the Humber, West Yorkshire. Part of the Bradford council area.

Main population centres: Keighley, Addingham, Ilkley, Haworth.

Profile: A seat in the north-west of West Yorkshire, set on the edge of the moors. Keighley itself is a former textile town, it contains somewhat troubled estates like Braithwaite, has a significant asian population and has in the past suffered some problems with racial tension. To the North the seat extends over part of Rombald`s Moor (including the iconic Ilkley Moor) to the towns of Addingham and Ilkley in Wharfedale. Ilkley is a prosperous Victoria Spa town that remains a popular tourist destination. To the south the seat follows the preserved heritage steam railway through villages like Haworth, again a popular tourist destination thanks to its association with the Bronte sisters.

Politics: While the north and south of the seat are Conservative, Keighley itself provides the bulk of Labour`s support in the seat. In the past it has also been a BNP target, West Keighley was briefly the BNP`s safest council seat and the seat was contested by the BNP leader Nick Griffin in 2005 after a furore over alleged grooming of young white girls in Keighley by Asian men. The mother of the girl at the centre of the allegations later stood for the Labour party in West Keighley, defeating the BNP, who no longer have any councillors in Keighley.

Current MP

KRIS HOPKINS (Conservative) Born 1963. Educated at Leeds University. Former College Lecturer. Bradford councillor 1998-2010, leader of Bradford council 2006-10. Contested Leeds West 2001, Halifax 2005. First elected as MP for Keighley in 2010. PPS to Andrew Robathan 2012-2013, Under-secretary of State for Communities and Local Government 2013-2015. Government whip since 2015.

Past Results

2010

Con:

20003 (42%)

Lab:

17063 (36%)

LDem:

7059 (15%)

BNP:

1962 (4%)

Oth:

1605 (3%)

MAJ:

2940 (6%)

2005

Con:

15868 (34%)

Lab:

20720 (45%)

LDem:

5484 (12%)

BNP:

4240 (9%)

MAJ:

4852 (10%)

2001

Con:

16883 (39%)

Lab:

20888 (48%)

LDem:

4722 (11%)

UKIP:

840 (2%)

MAJ:

4005 (9%)

1997

Con:

18907 (37%)

Lab:

26039 (51%)

LDem:

5064 (10%)

MAJ:

7132 (14%)

Demographics

2015 Candidates

KRIS HOPKINS (Conservative) See above.

JOHN GROGAN (Labour) Born 1961, Halifax. Educated at St Michaels RC College and Oxford University. Former local government officer and press officer. Contested Selby 1987, 1992. MP for Selby 1997-2010.

That wouldn’t be because your views tend to be somewhat socially conservative and you don’t want to admit to having rightwing views?

Regarding issues such as taxation, nationalisation, union power, the City you would find that the Thatcher/Tebbit era Conservatives persued policies which would now be regarded as not just left of the Cameroons but left of Blair, Brown and Balls.

And incidentally why do you find Rosindell, Bone and Kelly so objectionably right-wing? Is it anything more than they’re lower-middle class people representing unfashionable places? What they come across as are populists – well Rosindell and Bone do, I had no idea who Kelly was until I looked him up on wikipedia.

(2) A third of Labour’s vote came in Keighley Central, where they managed over 60% of the vote. Keighley Central contains one of the largest Asian communities of any British council ward (54.13%).

(3) Keighley West, which UKIP won with nearly 40% of the vote is very much a white working-class area.

(4) UKIP got nowhere in leafy professional Ilkley, which the Conservatives carried by over two to one over Labour on just over half the vote. UKIP finished fourth behind the Lib Dems.

(5) The extent of Conservative support in Craven is greater than these results suggest because of Independents. There were two seats up for grabs with one going to an Independent.

(6) Although Kris Hopkins is far from out of it, can he manage to trim Labour’s advantage sufficiently in Keighley itself (especially the wwc wards of Keighleys West and East)? Not if the people there opt for UKIP instead. The concern is that Hopkins is not a populist right-winger in the Philip Davies mold- indeed he is very much a Europhile by the standards of the Conservative party.

It could come down to where the UKIP goes to in Keighley W (obviously some of it will stay UKIP, but it’s bound to get squeezed down). If Labour can attract more back to their banner than the Tories, which is more than possible in that area, this seat remains very winnable. Some of Labour’s results in W Yorks are very disappointing but these are rather better.

Barnaby- I agree with you. UKIP also did very well in Worth Valley which had the air of a three-way fight. Given the Conservatives’ strength in Ilkley and Craven and Labour’s strength in Keighley Central and (to a lesser extent) in Keighley East, the neighbouring wards of Keighley West and Worth Valley could well decide things.

I’ve always been puzzled by why the Conservatives don’t do better in Keighley East than they have done. It’s quite a bit more prosperous than Central and West (I am aware that isn’t saying all that much) and includes the very smart village of Riddlesden from where you have a great view of the town and the hills of Haworth and Oakworth beyond it. Yet the Conservatives only carried the ward in 2008. I wonder if they do any better in general elections.

Hopkins really needs to start bearing down on that UKIP share. I suspect his problem may be that the wwc element that has traditionally kept the Conservatives a respectable second in Keighley itself has switched or is switching to UKIP. I remain unsure about this one but on the basis of this result, I am starting to think the Conservatives might be in significant difficulties here.

Of the West Yorkshire marginals polled by Ashcroft, I expected this one to be much tighter. Dewsbury which was polled a few months ago should be a comfy Labour gain, but Pudsey in his previous poll was worrying for Labour, with a tie.

Labour can take some comfort from this finding in Keighley. They’re not out of contention at all. That UKIP figure is going to be bothersome to both parties although they might split the WWC vote with the Tories more.

This seat is a real step back for Mr. Epps after he stood in Reading East last time coming a decent second to Conservative Rob Wilson. He also previously stood against David Cameron in Witney in 2001, the year he was first elected.

Gareth Epps was a councillor for the Katesgrove ward in Reading but stood down – in 2011 (I think). As I have posted on the Reading East page, the LibDem vote is likely to fall heavily given their weak local election results since 2010.

While this seat has swung against the tide in the past, I don’t think it will in 2010. Firstly there is little evidence that Hopkins has much of a personal vote. Secondly this is a seat where the tories will be hit hard by UKIP, while the very strongly Labour leaning asian vote will be unaffected. I also wonder how much Labour favouring demographic change is occurring here?

I think the Conservatives have a chance here but you can’t ignore the fact that Labour was 6% ahead in Lord Ashcroft’s poll last October or the evidence of UKIP taking a chunk of the Conservatives’ wwc vote in Keighley itself. I’m going for a Labour gain by 1500.

Well, it’s going to be very close. In the years I have campaigned in Keighley I have been able to predict the result this time the responses on the door step have been more guarded than in past years. The winning margin could well be in the 1959 result region, under a 180

The local election results here were interesting and I suspect there was a lot of ticket-splitting at ward level. The Conservatives carried Ilkley by only 13% over Labour, whose candidate (not unconnectedly) was Anne Cryer. I suspect the Conservative lead in the general election will have been double that. Meanwhile, the Conservatives managed to win the deprived and majority Asian ward of Keighley Central. The Conservative candidate was Zafar Ali who appears to have a personal vote as he won won the ward in 2007 and almost held on in 2011 despite it usually electing Labour councillors.

It was also notable that Labour only narrowly carried Keighley East and Keighley West locally.

Just having a look at some results on Boundary Assistant as one does on a Saturday night…does anyone know the reason behind the 3 Independents being elected here in the 2016 elections? They won in Ilkley, Craven and Keighley Central, and are described as “The Independents” and so are separate from the ordinary indepent councillors in Bradford.

Gary Waller, who was Conservative MP for Brighouse & Spenborough from 1979 to 1983, and for this constituency from then on until he lost it to Labour in 1997, has died. He was an Epping Forest district councillor at the time of his death. Although he was a large man, I remember him running the London Marathon annually when he was an MP.

Cheesus, re this constituency it seems to be simply a case of Labour winning the 3 Keighley town wards by a large enough margin to compensate, this time, for the Tory lead in the other 3. The Tories have won this seat only when they have restricted the Labour lead in at least one of those town wards. This time, Labour won all 3 by a large margin, and the Tories weren’t quite far enough ahead in the only marginal-ish ward amongst the 3 they regularly win, Worth Valley, to hold the seat. This could be an example of Labour’s superior ground game paying dividends – I’d suggest Ipswich is another.

“Gary Waller, who was Conservative MP for Brighouse & Spenborough from 1979 to 1983, and for this constituency from then on until he lost it to Labour in 1997, has died. He was an Epping Forest district councillor at the time of his death. Although he was a large man, I remember him running the London Marathon annually when he was an MP.”

One of the few Tory MPs to vote for reducing the homosexual age of consent to 16 in 1994, if I remember correctly. Not what would have been expected at the time from a burly Tory with a gritty Yorkshire constituency.

Also I think he was a rebel on rail privatisation and post office privatisation (helping force Major/Heseltine to abandon the latter).

He used to be the MP for Barkston Ash from 1997 to 2010 and gained national coverage for his campaign against the privatisation of Royal Mail. detention of suspects for 42 days, and gambling deregulation

He was also caught up on the expenses scandal claiming £150 on parliamentary expenses for English language tuition for a Mongolian intern

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